Our Nothingness, Humily, and How to Pray

Our Nothingness, Humility and How to Pray

JESUS SPEAKS TO US OF OUR NOTHINGNESS, HUMILITY, AND HOW TO PRAY

On our nothingness:  “So that I can pour my graces into your heart, it is necessary for you to convince yourself that by yourself you are nothing and are capable of nothing.  I look with much approval, and bestow gifts and graces on souls that are wary of attributing to themselves the good effects that result from their own works made in correspondence to my graces.  The souls that consider my gifts and graces given to them by my Love - to have been acquired by themselves, are committing many thefts.” (Volumes 1 and Vol. 19)

On humility:  Jesus says to Luisa, “If you had been more humble and closer to Me you would not have done that work so poorly.  But because you thought you could begin, continue and end the work without Me, you succeeded - despite your regret - but not according to my wish.  Therefore, ask for my assistance at the start of everything you undertake.  Always have Me present to work with you and it will be completed with perfection.  Know that if you always do this you will acquire the greatest humility.  If you do the opposite, pride will reenter you and choke the seed of the beautiful virtue of humility that has been sown in you.

"This was the cause of all the evils that inundate the earth, that is, the lack of humility.”  “No rescripts (an authoritative order of decree) of Grace leave my Throne, except by means of humility.  Nor can any ticket be received by Me, if it does not have the signature of humility.  No prayer is heard by my ears that moves my Heart to compassion, if it is not perfumed with the fragrance of humility.” (Vol. 3)

Jesus says, “Say to me often, ‘Lord, give me the grace to do well, from beginning to end, all that I want to undertake solely for You.  I no longer want to be a slave to creatures.’  Do this so that when you walk, speak, work, or do any other thing, you will do it solely for my satisfaction and pleasure.  When you experience mortification’s, hurts and contradictions, I want you to have your eyes fixed on Me and believe that it all comes from Me and not from creatures.”  (Vol. 1)

 On dryness in prayer (when unable to pray or meditate):  “At prayer, when you do not feel recollected, think of nothing and be at peace.  Do not think about why your prayer is unsuccessful, because this causes more distraction.  Instead, humble yourself, believe in the merits of suffering and remain tranquil.  Offer to Me your disappointments, boredom and distress as a sacrifice of praise, satisfaction, and reparation for the offenses done to Me.  Your prayer will then rise like fragrant incense to My throne.

On Pride:  Jesus says: “I cannot enter into hearts that stink with pride - souls so puffed up with themselves that there is no place in their hearts for Me.  They do not give credit to my graces and by fall after fall go to ruin. I therefore want you to very often - continuously - perform acts of humility.  You must be like an infant in swaddling bands who, unable to move by himself, even to walk or move a hand, must rely on its mother for everything.  In that way, I want you to remain near Me - like an infant - to always ask for my help and assistance, acknowledging your nothingness and expecting everything from Me.

Luisa says, “I then pictured human pride as an ugly worm in the act of kneeling at the feet of the Great King.  It rises up and swells up in a way that makes itself think it is something big.  And by its great audacity begins, little by little, to crawl and climb up the garb of the King until it reaches the King’s head.  Seeing the King’s golden crown, it wants to take it away from Him and place it on its own head.  It then wants to remove the Kings royal vestments, dethrone Him, and use every means to take the King’s life.  The worm does not even know what kind of being it is.  And, in its pride, does not know that if the King would notice the bold aggressor, He could destroy it-crush it under His feet-and make all the worm’s golden dreams collapse in a single instant. (Vol. 1)

 Jesus says, “My daughter, pride eats away Grace.  In the hearts of the proud there is nothing but an emptiness all full of smoke, which produces blindness.  Pride does nothing but make oneself an idol.  Therefore, the soul of the proud does not have his God in himself.  By sin, he has tried to destroy Him in his heart; and, erecting an altar in his heart, he puts himself upon it and adores himself.  (Vol. 3)

On Grace: “My daughter, do you know what my Grace does?  My Grace renders the soul of the Beatific Visionaries happy; and it renders happy the wayfarers with this one difference: the Visionaries enjoy and delight themselves and the wayfarers work and put it to trade.  Therefore, he who possesses Grace bears in himself Paradise ; for to possess Grace is none other than to possess Me.  And since I alone am the enchanting Object that enchants all of Paradise and forms all the contentment’s of the Blessed, by possessing Grace, the soul possesses her Paradise wherever she may be. (Vol. 3)

Grace is the life of the soul.  Just as the soul gives life to the body, so too Grace gives life to the soul.  But, it is not sufficient for the body to have only the soul in order to have life, it also needs a good to nourish it in order to grow to its proper stature.  What is this food?  It is correspondence.  (correspondence: agreement between particular things)  Thus, Grace and correspondence form that spiraled chain that conducts it to Heaven.  And, according to the measure of the soul’s correspondence, thus does Grace form the links of this chain.  What is the passport to enter into the Kingdom of Grace?  It is humility.  The soul, always looking at her nothingness, perceiving herself to be nothing but dust and wind, puts all her confidence in Grace.  And Grace, taking command, conducts her along the path of all the virtues and makes her reach the peak of perfection.” (Vol. 3)

“Such is my Grace.  The sun is an image of it, which inundates the peoples everywhere.  The poor, the rich, the ignorant and the learned; Christians and infidels (an unbeliever).  No one, no one can say he is deprived of it because the light of the Truth and the influence of my Grace fill the earth, like the sun at midday.”  ..My Grace never leaves anyone.  Rather, man voluntarily goes out of it, and not having Grace within him, my Grace seeks to follow him with the glimmering of its light.”  (Vol. 3)

On Mortification: (mortification: to subdue by abstinence or self inflicted pain) Jesus says, “...thus mortification has the power to devour all the imperfections and defects that are found in the soul, and goes so far as to spiritualize the body as well.  And it places itself about the soul and seals in all the virtues.  Until mortification shall have well devoured your soul as well as your body, it will not be able to seal perfectly in you the mark of my Crucifixion.”

“Mortification must be the breath of the soul.”

 HOW TO COME CLOSE TO JESUS

Prayer and meditation (Meditation attracts God to converse with the soul.)

Luisa meditated on the Passion constantly.  She says regarding meditation on the Passion, “All the good I have received has come from this source of good and love.” 

(From a letter of Luisa’s)  Luisa tells us: “Wherefore I tell you that the purpose of these Hours of the Passion is, not so much that of recounting the story of the Passion; but the purpose is the REPARATION, uniting together the different points of the Passion of Our Lord with the diversity of so many offenses, and together with Jesus, make worthy REPARATION, redoing for Him almost all that which all creatures owe Him.  From this comes the different ways of making reparation.  In these Hours, that is, in some passages one blesses; in others one compassionates; in others one praises; in others one comforts suffering Jesus; in others one compensates; in others one begs prays and asks.”  (Moses begged for God’s mercy and God relented (Exodus 32-7-14)

(The following are from various volumes)

Jesus tells us: “...whoever always thinks on my Passion forms a fountain in his heart and the more he thinks on It, the more this fountain grows.  And since the waters which spring forth are waters common to all; so this fountain of my Passion, which is formed in the heart, serves for the good of the soul, for my Glory and for the good of creatures.”  

 “...I will not regard these Hours as things of theirs, but as things done by Me; and I will give them my same merits as if I were in the act of suffering my Passion and, in this way, I will make them obtain the same effects, according to the disposition of the souls.  This I will do upon the earth, and I could not give more.”

“These Hours are the most precious of all because they are none other than the repetition of that which I did in the course of my mortal Life and of that which I continue to do in the Most Holy Sacrament.  When I hear these Hours of my Passion, I hear my own voice and my own prayers.  I see my Will in that soul that desires the good of all and that makes reparation for all, and I feel Myself transported to dwell in her in order to be able to do in her that which she herself does.  Oh, how greatly would I be pleased if even one were to do these Hours of my Passion in each town!  I would feel Myself in each town; and my Justice, greatly disdained in these times, would be placated in part.”

“Know that every time you do it (the Hours), my Mother feels as if She were on earth in person and as if She repeated her life, and therefore, She receives that glory and love which She gave to Me upon earth...”  After Luisa was told this she said, “I followed Her; and, from that time on, helped by His Grace, I have never again omitted it.”

“...know that by doing these Hours, the soul takes my thoughts and makes them hers; she takes my reparation, prayers, desires, affections, even my most intimate fibers and makes them hers.  And raising herself up between Heaven and earth, she performs my same office and, as co-redemptrix, says together with Me, ‘Ecce ego, mitte me (behold me, send me).  I want to make reparation to You for all, respond to You for all and impetrate good for all.’

“.... as the soul remembers my Life, my Passion and my prayers, they (the Angels) go around this soul and gather her words, her prayers, the tears, the offerings, the compassion which she gives Me.  They unite them to mine and bring them before my Majesty to renew for Me the Glory of my own Life.  And the pleasure of the Angels is such that they are reverently waiting to hear that which the soul says and pray together with her.  Therefore, how attentively and respectfully must the soul do these Hours, thinking that the Angels hang from their lips in order to repeat that which she says right after her.”

“In these times (1916 - now it is worse than those times!) want great satisfaction, and only he who makes Me his own can give it to Me.  And that which The Father found in Me, that is; glory, complacency, love, entire and perfect satisfactions for the good of all, I want to find in these souls, like so many other Jesus’, who return all to Me.  And You must repeat these intentions in each hour of the Passion which you do, in each action, in all....”

“Do you not know that for each word on my Passion, thought, compassion, reparation, memory of my pains, so many communications as in electricity spring up between Me and the soul; and, therefore, the soul is adorned with so many varieties of beauty? (Vol. 12)

Jesus, speaking of those who will do the Hours:  “I will also give them a soul for each word which they will recite if they will do them together with Me and with my same Will, because all the greater or lesser efficacy of these Hours of my Passion is in the greater or lesser union which they have with Me.  And by doing them with my Will, the creature hides itself in my Will; and with my Will in act, I can do all the good that I want, even with a single word.  And this I will do every time that they will do them.”(Vol.2)

The Blessed Mother tells us: The prayer most powerful on the Heart of my Son and that which softens Him the most is the creature’s clothing itself with all that He Himself did and suffered, having given all of it to the creature as a gift.  Therefore, my daughter, crown your head with Jesus’ thorns.  Bead your eyes with His tears.  Impregnate your tongue with His bitterness.  Dress your soul with His Blood.   Adorn yourself with His wounds.  Pierce your hands and feet with His nails and, as another Christ, present yourself before His Divine Majesty.   This spectacle will move Him so that He will not know how to refuse anything to the soul dressed with his own garment.”  (Vol. 2)

The souls in Purgatory and the Saints spoke to Luisa saying, “.... there is no soul which enters into Purgatory that does not bear the stamp of the Hours of the Passion and, helped and escorted by these Hours, takes his place in a secure place.  There is not a soul that flies into Paradise , which is not accompanied by these Hours of the Passion.  These Hours make rain from Heaven continuous dew upon the earth, in Purgatory and even in Heaven.”  (Vol. 12)

“Meditate on the Cross, and it will give you the most beautiful features one can find in Heaven and earth.  Always be enamored of the Cross...”   (Vol. 1)

 On confidence in prayer: Luisa says after her offering to Jesus, “Wherefore, I made the offering with complete confidence that the Child would have accepted it.  It seemed as though Jesus accepted my poor offerings with great pleasure, but what He like the most was the confidence with which I had offered it.  (Vol. 3)

Wherefore, He said to me: Confidence has two arms.  With the one, one embraces my Humanity and uses it as a ladder to rise up to my Divinity.  With the other, one embraces the Divinity and draws from It torrents of celestial graces.  Therefore, the soul is all inundated by the Divine Being.  When the soul is confident, she is sure to obtain what she asks.  I let my arms be bound.  I let the soul do what she wants.  I let her penetrate deeper within my Heart, and I let her take for herself what she has asked of Me. If I did not do this, I would feel Myself in a state of violence.”

Jesus tells us, “Oral prayer serves to maintain correspondence.  Interior meditation must serve as food to maintain the conversation between God and the soul.”  (Vol. 3)

On interior silence: Jesus asks, “...but what is true rest?  It is interior rest, the silence of everything that is not God.  You see the twinkling stars of moderate light, not dazzling like the sun, sleep; the silence of all nature, of mankind and, finally, of animals...for all are looking for a place, a cave where to be in silence and in rest from the fatigue of life.  If that is necessary for the body, so much more for the soul.  But to be able to rest in God, inner silence is necessary.  But what is this inner silence?  It is to silence our own passions by holding them in check; to impose silence on desires, inclinations and sentiments; in summary, on everything which does not call God.  Now what is the means to unite man to this?  The only and absolutely necessary means is to undo one’s own being according to nature, reduce it to nothing; as it was nothing before it was created, and when you have reduced your being to nothing, take it up again in God.  (Vol. 3)

Lynne Bauer, JMJ

June, 2008